{"id":127798,"date":"2022-07-14T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=127798"},"modified":"2022-07-13T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T23:12:07","slug":"military-times-foundations-soldier-of-the-year-is-a-stud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=127798","title":{"rendered":"Military Times Foundation’s Soldier of the Year is a Stud"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Maj. Nicholas Dockery is one of only two U.S. officers to receive two Silver Star’s post in the\u00a0 9\/11 era (the other is\u00a0 SEAL CDR Stone, since deceased). His resume is equally as distinguishe: two Purple Hearts, two other awards with ‘C’ devices indicating they were received for combat action, he’s led an Operational Detachment Alpha (what we used to call an A-team), served as the ADC to the OIC of 1st Special Ops, and has won Army awards for his work with foster children (no mention of kittens or puppies – no doubt an oversight.<\/p>\n

Dockery\u2019s first Silver Star came during his first deployment to Afghanistan as a fresh infantry platoon leader assigned to 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, part of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. He was deployed immediately after arriving at Carson, joining an experienced platoon a few months into their deployment. His unit moved into Kapisa Province in late September 2012, Dockery said in a 2017 podcast interview. Days later, on Oct. 2, 2012, his life changed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Dockery\u2019s platoon and a platoon of Afghan National Army troops were maintaining a security perimeter around the provincial governor\u2019s compound during a high-level meeting when Taliban fighters attacked with machine guns, grenades and RPGs.\u00a0 The lieutenant gathered half his troops and counterattacked, but as they continued to press their advantage, his weapons squad leader, now-retired Staff Sgt. Eric Mitchell, was wounded. That set off a close-quarters firefight in a compound where Dockery and a team of four killed several fighters. But a Taliban counterattack with a series of grenades and RPGs wounded all of the Americans.As the dust settled, according to his Silver Star narrative, Dockery realized that one of his NCOs, Sgt. Jack Hansbro, was missing. The officer charged into a nearby alleyway and killed two Taliban fighters who were dragging away an unconscious Hansbro. \u201c[That day] was a very harrowing event,\u201d Dockery told Army Times. \u201cFor several years, I thought about it every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

After completing his platoon leader time and a tour as a company executive officer, Dockery deployed as a combat advisor, where his work along side Special Forces troops solidified his desire to become a Green Beret. Following selection and his training pipeline, Dockery deployed again to Afghanistan with 7th Special Forces Group, with whom he would earn a second Silver Star. The second valor award came from a fight in which about 250 Taliban fighters attacked a combined U.S.-Afghan force, and the then-captain\u2019s decisions and rapid response were credited with blunting the attack. More than 110 enemy fighters were killed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Air Force Times via Yahoo News<\/a><\/p>\n

First he gets a Silver Star, THEN goes SF and goes out and gets another. Reminds me of Connie Shokner, the bad-ass con in “The Longest Yard who killed several people with his bare hands – and then learned karate.<\/p>\n

Some small editing within the text box for brevity.<\/p>\n

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Maj. Nicholas Dockery is one of only two U.S. officers to receive two Silver Star’s post … Military Times Foundation’s Soldier of the Year is a Stud<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,232,630,478,461,130,462],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-army-news","category-green-beret","category-none","category-purple-heart","category-real-soldiers","category-silver-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127804,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127798\/revisions\/127804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}